The origin of the camouflage comes from a military tactic used on ships during World War I, known as the ‘Dazzle Camouflage’. It consisted of painting ships with black and white geometric patterns to blur their shapes and confuse the enemy. “The story goes that the artists who designed these camouflage patterns drew inspiration from Cubist paintings,” explained Edgar Aneas, an expert in vehicle camouflage.
Since the 1980s, carmakers have also used the same principle to camouflage their prototypes, especially when the vehicles need to be driven on public roads. Initially, the camouflage was simple – just black film taped onto the vehicle to conceal special styling elements. Sometimes, extra panels might be added to alter the shape and mislead competitors as to the actual design of the new model.
Over time, there was a need to make the camouflage more effective because computer software was becoming sophisticated and the design under the simple camouflage could be made more visible. This led to the patchy type of camouflage, not unlike that used for military clothing to reduce visibility of a soldier in the jungle or desert. Each brand uses its own camouflage and some even patent the design.
Inspired by Modernism and Barcelona
SEAT, the Spanish carmaker in the Volkswagen Group, has been using a unique camouflage for its all-new Leon model which will have its global premiere today. Official and unofficial pictures have shown the car wrapped in a broken tile vinyl inspired by Modernism and the city of Barcelona, the home of SEAT.
“The new SEAT Leon has a lot of personality and is very difficult to camouflage because it’s a sculpture on wheels that expresses SEAT’s emotional nature. The Leon was born here and because of the special relationship we have with Barcelona, we looked to the city for inspiration,” explained Jordi Font, head of SEAT’s Colour & Trim Development.
Developing a new design – the challenge
“This is the first time we didn’t use conventional camouflage. It was a challenge, because the main goal is to distort the shapes of the car. We worked on several versions to blur the lines but send a clear message – that we are Barcelona, that we are Mediterranean, and that we are colourful. We want to give meaning to our sculpture,” he said.
Not only does the camouflage have an aesthetic function but it must also withstand extreme weather and driving conditions. The material used is a special cast vinyl that resists these conditions.
“The cars are camouflaged so that they can be tested in different weather situations, sub-zero temperatures, long exposure to the elements, rain and desert heat. This vinyl is made with a very durable material and has special characteristics that prevent it from peeling off or deteriorating,” noted Aneas, the camouflage expert.
2019 was a great year for Perodua as it surpassed all previous sales volumes with a total number of 240,341 vehicles delivered. The volume was 5.8% higher than the figure for 2018 which had been the prior record. The Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA) will be releasing the full year’s sales data tomorrow but by Perodua’s own estimates that the Total Industry Volume (TIV) for 2019 was 604,775 units, the Malaysian carmaker’s share would have been 40%, an increase of 2% from 2018.
Announcing the achievement, Perodua’s President & CEO, Dato’ Zainal Abidin Ahmad, said that all five models in its range – the Alza, Aruz, Bezza, Axia and Myvi – were segment leaders, with the Aruz notable for being Malaysia’s best-selling SUV with 30,115 units sold.
Export growth to get more attention
Continuing with its efforts on exports, the total volume sold in other countries last year was around 2,825 units, of which 1,800 units of the Myvi were purchased by Daihatsu and sold under its brand in Indonesia. To date, Perodua exports to 7 countries and Sri Lanka is its second largest overseas market where the Bezza was the bestselling sedan in the sub-1.0 litre segment.
The latest Myvi introduced in Mauritius attracted a lot of attention.
“While our exports remained modest, we are making good progress in establishing our brand overseas and are looking at further improving the numbers this year,” said Dato’ Zainal. He said that the government has urged Perodua to export more of its vehicles. However, there needs to be proper market studies to ensure that the products are the right ones (at the right price levels) and the marketing done properly. Since 2018, Perodua has stepped up its attention to exports after having been busy on its transformation and cost-competitiveness activities earlier.
Healthy aftersales business continues
Given the position at the lowest end of the market with the most affordable vehicles, it would seem that Perodua customers are probably going to buy one or two and then move upwards to other brands as their personal financial circumstances improve. They would also be less likely to continue using the aftersales services available from Perodua, believing that it’s cheaper to go to the smaller independent workshops.
However, Perodua’s figures show that there is a fairly high rate of retention in the aftersales business. Since 2015, service intake has grown by some 20% and while this would also be in tandem with the rising annual sales volume, there are still many owners who continue to return to Perodua’s service centres even after many years. Last year, the service centres nationwide handled over 2.35 million vehicles.
“We have the largest vehicle sales and service network in Malaysia. Our intention is not so much to expand further but to enhance the facilities we already have by working closely with our dealers for the benefit of our valued customers,” said Dato’ Zainal. “In this respect, the company is working with its dealers, which currently make up 75% of its sales and service network, to invest and upgrade facilities.”
Supporting local suppliers
Both Perodua and Proton have had the obligation of helping to develop the domestic automotive industry, particularly the suppliers so that parts and systems can be obtained locally. Perodua has been diligent at this and has consistently helped its suppliers to grow and remain ‘healthy’. Even in difficult market conditions when sales have slowed down, Perodua has stepped in to assist in various ways so that the vendors do not have serious financial problems that impact their ability to deliver on time and maintain quality.
Transmission production at a factory in Negeri Sembilan.
Last year, Perodua purchased around RM5.4 billion worth of parts from suppliers and at least 90% of the parts in its vehicles are local content. The suppliers themselves not only enjoy steady business from Perodua but a few are also supplying to Daihatsu factories overseas, an indication that Malaysian suppliers can also produce world-class products that meet the stringent quality demands of Japanese manufacturers.
Dato’ Zainal said he welcomed the healthy competition from Proton as it will only serve to motivate and strengthen Perodua. Furthermore, as Proton’s volumes rise, the suppliers will also prosper and be able to achieve better economies of scale with bigger orders from both carmakers. This will also help them lower their prices, a win-win situation for manufacturer and supplier.
Looking ahead
While the government expects GDP growth to be 4.8% in 2020, Perodua is cautious about its sales performance at this time until some issues – like the new National Automotive Policy – are clearer. So for now, the forecast for numbers remains at 240,000 with a market share target of 40%. Production volume is planned to rise by 4.1% or 10,000 units in anticipation of increased exports as well as fulfilling the backlog of orders for certain models.
Providing affordable cars for Malaysians has been one of Perodua’s constant objectives from the time it started.
With regard to price increases predicted in the near future (due to a revision of taxation for vehicles), Dato’ Zainal gave assurance that this won’t happen for Perodua products right away. “Our mission has always been to provide affordable vehicles and we would not just pass on any increases to customers. We will address the situation by ‘counter-measures’ to try to keep prices stable for as long as possible,” he explained.
On new models to be launched, he did not elaborate on specific models although the market is buzzing with rumours of a new compact SUV designated the D55L. This is said to be based on the Daihatsu Rocky launched in Japan last year and sits on the DNGA (Daihatsu New Generation Architecture) platform.
New Daihatsu Rocky launched in Japan last year is expected to be the basis of a new compact SUV model. How close will the Perodua version look to this?
However, Dato’ Zainal did share with us the product direction of the company which takes into account industry trends which could give clues to what the future product will have. In the slide, there were four subjects – Connected, Autonomous, Shared Services and Electric. These hint at features like cruise control which is a form of autonomous operation and might even be advanced cruise control with adaptive speeds. As it is, the A.S.A. driver assistance system already has autonomous capability such as automatic braking so Perodua may be able to get more advanced systems at a cost which allows them to be offered without raising the price.
‘Electric’ doesn’t necessarily mean an electric powertrain and Dato’ Zainal mentioned ‘downsizing’, the industry trend of reducing engine sizes but maintaining or improving performance through using direct fuel injection or turbocharging. Well, as it is, Perodua engines started off with an 850 cc engine in the Kancil and its range has had the smallest engines all this while. So they can’t get any smaller but adding an electric motor as a hybrid powertrain or using an electric compressor could be under study now.
Much of the advanced technology development would be done either by Daihatsu, its technical partner, or the suppliers. But where design and upper body development are concerned, Perodua R&D aims to further increase its capabilities. Since the development of the first Myvi, when Perodua was a ‘junior partner’ in the project which also involved Daihatsu and Toyota, the Malaysian carmaker’s capabilities have grown steadily. It reached a point where Malaysians could develop the Bezza sedan which is a model that you will not find in the Daihatsu range. Bear in mind that even adding a boot to the Axia involved engineering competence and it was not just a ‘cut-and-weld’ exercise.
Dato’ Zainal revealed that Daihatsu Indonesia has also called on Perodua R&D to assist in product development for models sold in Indonesia. He said that it is hoped that Perodua can become the ASEAN hub for Daihatsu where R&D is concerned. While Daihatsu’s operations in Indonesia are larger, they are more focused on production whereas Perodua has made bigger investments on R&D facilities.
Aerial view of the Perodua complex
“We have invested RM1.4 billion to date, which is higher than what Indonesia has spent on R&D, and we plan to continue investments in this area. Some of the money will go into extending the test track to 5 kms so that testing can be more comprehensive. Therefore, we hope that Daihatsu will consider making Perodua its R&D hub for ASEAN while Indonesia could be a production hub,” he said.
Perodua has a strong position as market leader, which it certainly deserves. But it is not going to take this dominance for granted and ‘relax’ and even though Proton, its closest rival, is intent on regaining its No.1 position, Perodua will stay focused with its own strategic plans for the coming years.
The sunvisor as we know it has been around since the earliest days of the motorcar, at least after the driver had the protection of a body around the seating area. While the windscreen glass prevented the onrush of wind from causing discomfort and affecting vision, it did not stop the rays of the sun from blinding the driver.
Back then, drivers must have attached some sort of board to the upper part of the windscreen to block the sun. Later on, when carmakers realised it was something to address, they provided a small panel which could flip up when not needed. In the 1970s, a ball joint was used at one corner so the sunvisor could be flipped to the side so that it could also block the sunshine if it was not coming from the front.
The sunvisor is one of those things in a car which has never evolved, maybe because its function is so basic. Other than adding a mirror (some with illumination) and sleeves to store cards or papers, the sunvisor is the same as what it was decades ago.
Driving towards the evening sun can often be blinding, even with a sunvisor. This innovation could eliminate the discomfort (and danger to driving).
Blocks the sun but not the view
Now a group of engineers at Bosch have come out with an innovation for sunvisor design which can block the sun without also blocking a driver’s view of the road. It achieves this by using an LCD panel instead of the usual cardboard or foam-filled panel. The panel can be flipped up when not needed.
There’s also a camera which is pointed at the driver’s face to recognise facial features like the nose, mouth, and, most importantly, the eyes. The camera’s video feed allows a computer to use AI to recognise shadows on the driver’s eyes and darkens only the areas on the visor where the sunlight is strong. The AI varies the darkening and generally, there should be enough areas that are not darkened for the driver to have a clear view ahead.
The Virtual Visor, as it is referred to, is not an official Bosch product yet. It was shown at the CES 2020 and described as a project which three of the company’s engineers worked on in their free time. If the company sees potential to commercialise it, then it would have to go through stringent development processes to ensure durability, safety and all the things that carmakers will demand if they are to adopt it.
It’s not so long ago that the safety provisions in cars – even those at the top end of the market – did little except provide protection when an accident had happened. Passive safety features, such as seatbelts, airbags and a strong body construction were the key elements. The thinking then was to provide as much protection as possible to minimise the injurious effects of the accident.
When it came to avoiding an accident, the active safety features like ABS and vehicle stability systems helped the driver to retain a degree of control. Instead of ending up in a drain or against a tree, such systems corrected the movements of the car to try to stay on course.
Today, cars have systems that are able to recognise the risk of an accident, alert the driver to the hazard and, if necessary, intervene automatically to prevent a collision, or reduce the consequence it there is an impact. Such systems often begin at the upper end of the market, so it’s not surprising that Lexus has been a pioneer in the field. Its investment in the research, development and deployment of sophisticated new technologies is central to the brand’s goal of securing a future where there are no road accidents.
When the original LS 400 was launched 30 years ago, it was the first car in the world to feature an SRS (Supplementary Restraint System) airbag integrated into the steering wheel – the precursor of multiple airbag systems designed to give effective protection to everyone inside the car. This led to world’s first dual-chamber passenger airbag, fitted to the second generation IS 200 in 2005. Its unique structure greatly improved protection for the neck and shoulders.
Today, Lexus models can feature as many 10 different airbags around the cabin, including knee, side and curtain shield systems and front airbags that activate in line with the severity of the impact.
The behind-the-scenes work at Lexus to improve and devise new safety systems doesn’t just focus on cars and how they are driven. It goes further to analyse and understand the human body and how people react physically in the moments before an impact.
The key to this research is THUMS – Total Human Model for Safety – a computerised crash test system that replicates the not just the size and shape of the human body, but also the position, density and vulnerability of its internal muscles, bones and organs. It’s adaptable for different ages, too, with virtual modelling of infants, older people and even pregnant women. THUMS’s digital mapping can track the properties of around 20 million points on and inside the human body.
THUMS can obtain extremely detailed information about the human body during an accident using advanced digital mapping.
In 2015, Lexus bundled its principal new safety features in a new package called Lexus Safety System +, revealed for the first time on the fourth generation RX SUV. This was the start of a worldwide roll-out of the safety system with its wide-ranging availability demonstrating Lexus’ belief that, to be effective in reducing accidents and injuries, new safety technologies need to be provided on as many vehicles as possible. Democratising cutting-edge safety technology means these features cannot be restricted to the high-grade models only but are offered on entry and core vehicles.
A Lexus vehicle with a variety of sensors carrying out tests for autonomous operation.
Over the past 4 years, Lexus has improved the scope and the functionality of its safety these systems, enhancing their capabilities. In 2017, the launch of the all-new LS 500h flagship sedan marked a significant leap forward in safety with the debut of Lexus Safety System + A. This cutting-edge portfolio included a series of world-first features, with a level of driver assistance that propelled our progress towards future automated driving systems. Although not formally classified, Lexus Safety System + A meets the criteria for SAE Level 2+ automation – the industry standard for automated driving capability.
Future automated driving systems will have an important impact on road safety, having the potential to reduce the number of traffic injuries and fatalities, while also easing congestion (which helps the environment) and enabling older and disabled people to enjoy mobility.
Car races are decided on the track. That will continue to be the case for some time to come. But virtual racing contests are also on the rise as eSports gain popularity all over the world and have the support of some carmakers. For some time now, eSport tournaments have been drawing huge crowds – but are these competitions really sports? “Of course they are,” said Niklas Krellenberg, one of Germany’s top professional racing gamers. “I do more than sports shooters, for example.”
Athletic associations are beginning to share this view. In 2022, eSports will be a medal event at the Asian Games, and the International Olympic Committee is considering whether to include them at the Summer Games in Paris in 2024.
2.2 billion competitors worldwide
This is hardly surprising. Worldwide sales of computer games exceeded one hundred billion US dollars in 2016 – more than the global film and music industries combined. Some 2.2 billion people compete regularly in these games. The best of them can live off the sport – quite well, in fact. They’re organized in professional teams, draw set salaries, and win high levels of prize money. Tournaments for League of Legends, a role-playing team game, can award millions of dollars to the winners.
Even soccer clubs like VfL Wolfsburg in Germany have begun to add eSport teams to their organizations. “We want to reach young people with our programs,” explained Tim Schumacher, the club’s General Manager, noting that it became the world’s first soccer club to offer contracts to eSport players. And of course, there’s also a strong interest in ‘developing new marketing fields’.
New model presentation at a gaming fair?
In mid-2017, Porsche and Microsoft invited the best e-racers from an online contest to enter a 24-hour race in Le Mans. The contestants vied for their own Le Mans laurels on their Xbox consoles – in a sixth classification – and took part in the official awards ceremony. One week earlier, Microsoft had presented – to a crowd of gamers – the most powerful 911 in history, the GT2 RS, at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles. “The gaming sector means a lot to us, because it enables us to provide an emotional and interactive brand experience to a young and extensive target group,” explained Sebastian Hornung, Porsche’s Director of Branded Entertainment.
Instead of a traditional debut to car enthusiasts at a motorshow, the GT2 RS was first shown to gamers in 2017 at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles.
“Awakening and promoting interest in motorsports and conveying the excitement of the racetrack – you can do that really well in the virtual world,” he added. Last year alone, Hornung and his team put considerable effort into preparing multiple Porsche models for use in a wide range of games. “The entire process – including taking photos and possibly laser measurements, providing the technical data, and producing a digital copy for the game – takes around 6 months for each individual model,” he revealed.
How real are these simulators?
The result is a virtual experience that is astonishingly close to driving a real Porsche. “It’s awfully similar to the real thing,” confirmed test driver Lars Kern as he raced his GT2 RS around the Nordschleife in Forza Motorsport 7. “It feels extremely realistic.”
The simulator at Porsche which uses powerful supercomputers helps engineers in their development work.
Kern is a test and development driver at Porsche who spent many years as a race-car driver. In 2017, he drove a 911 GT2 RS to a new record for road-authorized sportscars on the Nordschleife. He’s also very good at transferring his skills to a racing simulator, thanks to the steering wheel and the software’s high degree of realism. But even for someone with his level of experience, driving without a steering wheel is a completely different story. A small controller with a dozen buttons but no pedals and no feel for the car. “I’m slightly out of my depth,” conceded Kern.
World rally champion on the Xbox
The contestants are another story in the world of eSports. Krellenberg, 27, is already a world rally champion on the Xbox gaming console. He steers his Porsche confidently across the screen through the virtual curves of the legendary racecourse in the Eifel region. The controller is for him what the steering wheel is for Kern—an extension of his arms.
Like Kern, Krellenberg knows the braking points on countless racetracks and the weaknesses of his rivals and challengers. He knows which cars will respond in which ways to strong steering actions. And when he races, he switches off the traction control and ABS.
Niklas Krellenberg is one of Germany’s top professional racing gamers.
You may imagine that Krellenberg has a real sportscar as well but he seldom sits behind a real steering wheel in an actual car. He uses public transportation for the short commute to his university; if he needs a car in his hometown of Magdeburg, he borrows his parents’ wheels.
Krellenberg is a new type of athlete. He doesn’t lift weights or send balls of any type flying across a court. Soccer players have amazing legs; race-car drivers are said to require extraordinary muscles in their buttocks. For gamers like Krellenberg, the eyes and hands are what count. Their fingers can perform up to5 actions per minute.
eSports gaining in relevance
Digital developments and rapidly accelerating process speeds have brought virtual racing to the attention of the traditional racing scene. “The lines between the two fields are starting to blur,” observed Frank-Steffen Walliser, Porsche’s Motorsports Director. “eSports are gaining in relevance, and we’re interested in this development and want to help shape it.”
Digital developments have brought virtual racing to the attention of the traditional racing scene
After all, virtual processes are an integral part of making cars. Simulators are used every day to tune them, and computers are absolutely essential development aids. What’s new are the possibilities for training drivers. How can young talent be encouraged? Console games can help address this question, said Walliser, because ‘many e-racers have acquired a very good foundation’.
Despite major advances in virtual racing, everyone recognizes that they’re different from racing in the real world. “The sense of speed isn’t the same; you can’t compare it with accelerating a real car,” said Kern. “It’s difficult to convey that type of sensation in a virtual setting. The textures, spatial relations, and smells of a race car also play very special roles. Which is why classic motorsports will continue. But in the future, it’ll be side by side with virtual motorsports.”
The age of autonomous cars – vehicles that can operate without human control – is coming. It’s not charging at us but with the amount of investment and R&D going into such technology, there will come a time when the companies are ready to sell autonomous vehicles. The introduction won’t be global, just as electric vehicles are not sold everywhere even though they have reached commercialisation.
While autonomous technologies have improved substantially, they still ultimately view the drivers around them as obstacles made up of ones and zeros, rather than human beings with specific intentions, motivations, and personalities. For all their fancy sensors and intricate data-crunching abilities, even the most cutting-edge cars lack something that (almost) every teenager with a ‘P’ licence has: social awareness.
A team led by researchers at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has been exploring whether self-driving cars can be programmed to classify the social personalities of other drivers. This could help them better predict what different cars will do — and, therefore, be able to drive more safely among them.
In a new paper, the scientists integrated tools from social psychology to classify driving behaviour with respect to how selfish or selfless a particular driver is. Specifically, they used something called social value orientation (SVO), which represents the degree to which someone is selfish (‘egoistic’) versus altruistic or cooperative (‘prosocial’). The system then estimates drivers’ SVOs to create real-time driving trajectories for self-driving cars.
Testing their algorithm on the tasks of merging lanes and making unprotected turns to the left (on US roads where vehicles travel on the right), the team showed that they could better predict the behaviour of other cars by a factor of 25%. For example, in the left-turn simulations, their car knew to wait when the approaching car had a more egoistic driver, and to then make the turn when the other car was more ‘prosocial’.
While not yet robust enough to be implemented on real roads, the system could have some intriguing use cases, and not just for the cars that drive themselves. Say you’re a human driving along and a car suddenly enters your blind spot — the system could give you a warning in the rear-view mirror that the car has an aggressive driver, allowing you to adjust accordingly. It could also allow self-driving cars to actually learn to exhibit more human-like behaviour that will be easier for human drivers to understand.
Mercedes-Benz researchers have taken prototype autonomous vehicles through various cities around the world to collect data on driving conditions and drivers so as to improve the ‘intelligence’ of the cars.
“Working with and around humans means figuring out their intentions to better understand their behaviour,” said graduate student Wilko Schwarting, who was lead author on the new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “People’s tendencies to be collaborative or competitive often spills over into how they behave as drivers. In this paper, we sought to understand if this was something we could actually quantify.”
Schwarting’s co-authors included MIT professors Sertac Karaman and Daniela Rus, as well as research scientist Alyssa Pierson and former CSAIL postdoc Javier Alonso-Mora.
A central issue with today’s self-driving cars is that they’re programmed to assume that all humans act the same way. This means that, among other things, they’re quite conservative in their decision-making at 4-way stops and other intersections. While this caution reduces the chance of fatal accidents, it also creates bottlenecks that can be frustrating for other drivers, not to mention hard for them to understand. This may be why the majority of traffic incidents have involved getting rear-ended by impatient drivers.
“Creating more human-like behaviour in autonomous vehicles (AVs) is fundamental for the safety of passengers and surrounding vehicles, since behaving in a predictable manner enables humans to understand and appropriately respond to the AV’s actions,” said Schwarting.
To try to expand the car’s social awareness, the CSAIL team combined methods from social psychology with game theory, a theoretical framework for conceiving social situations among competing players. The team modeled road scenarios where each driver tried to maximize their own utility and analyzed their ‘best responses’ given the decisions of all other agents.
Based on that small snippet of motion from other cars, the team’s algorithm could then predict the surrounding cars’ behaviour as cooperative, altruistic, or egoistic — grouping the first two as ‘prosocial’. People’s scores for these qualities rest on a continuum with respect to how much a person demonstrates care for themselves versus care for others.
In the merging and left-turn scenarios, the two outcome options were to either let somebody merge into your lane (‘prosocial’) or not (‘egoistic’). The team’s results showed that, not surprisingly, merging cars are deemed more competitive than non-merging cars.
The system was trained to try to better understand when it’s appropriate to exhibit different behaviours. For example, even the most deferential of human drivers knows that certain types of actions — like making a lane-change in heavy traffic — require a moment of being more assertive and decisive.
“By modeling driving personalities and incorporating the models mathematically using the SVO in the decision-making module of a robot car, this work opens the door to safer and more seamless road-sharing between human-driven and robot-driven cars,” said Rus.
In the context of Malaysian traffic conditions, such advanced intelligent technology may well be valuable in addressing the unpredictability of the many motorcyclists which ride between cars. Of course, it will require extremely quick processing for the autonomous car to respond and react in time to avoid a collision.
The research was supported by the Toyota Research Institute for the MIT team. The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research provided support for the specific participation of Mora.
As the electric car era approaches, it’s not just new types of vehicles that are needed but also supporting services, especially to recharge the battery packs. Unlike the petrol station network which is the product of many decades and has global coverage, battery recharging points and stations are only just beginning to be set up.
For companies that invest in recharging stations, there is a need to ensure sufficient demand and usage so as to get returns on their investment. That time is coming as the population of EVs (and also plug-in hybrids) rises and more vehicles need to be recharged daily.
Volkswagen is also exploring other approaches and has provided a glimpse into the future in which the search for charging stations becomes unnecessary. Instead, mobile charging robots will take over this task, going to the vehicle completely autonomously. After it is started via app or V2X communication, the mobile robot drives itself to the vehicle that needs charging and communicates with it.
Everything done autonomously
From opening the charging socket flap to connecting the plug to decoupling, the entire charging process occurs without any human interaction. The robot brings a trailer in the form of a mobile energy storage device to the vehicle and connects it. It then uses this energy storage device to charge the battery of the electric vehicle. The mobile energy storage device stays with the vehicle during the whole charging process. The robot, in the meantime, charges other electric vehicles. Once the charging service is complete, the robot collects the energy storage device and brings it back to the charging station.
“The mobile charging robot will spark a revolution when it comes to charging in different parking facilities, such as multistorey car parks, parking spaces and underground car parks because we bring the charging infrastructure to the car and not the other way around. With this, we are making almost every car park electric, without any complex individual infrastructural measures,” explained Mark Moller, Head of Development at Volkswagen Group Components. “It’s a visionary prototype, which can be made into reality quite quickly, if the general conditions are right,” he added.
Volkswagen Group Components is researching different approaches to the assembly of charging infrastructure and has already developed several successful products. The flexible quick charging station and DC wall boxes are already part of a future charging family. Customer-oriented, intelligent and flexible approaches to charging are at the centre of the research. Other innovative products such as the charging robot are currently being developed.
Autonomous, compact and flexible
The prototype consists of a compact, self-driving robot as well as flexible and agile energy storage devices, also known as ‘battery wagons’. When fully charged, these are equipped with an energy content of around 25 kWh each. A charging robot can move several battery wagons at the same time. With its integrated charging electronics, the energy storage device allows for DC quick charging with up to 50 kW on the vehicle.
The robot, which can move autonomously, is fitted with cameras, laser scanners and ultrasonic sensors. The combination of these systems not only allows the robot to carry out the charging process completely autonomously but also to move around freely in the parking area, recognising possible obstacles and to react to them appropriately. Depending on the size of the parking area or the underground carpark, several charging robots can be employed simultaneously so that several vehicles can be attended to.
The mobile charging robot can be put to use in various ways. It isn’t just a robot arm that connects a car to a fixed charging station. Instead, drivers have the choice to park in any available space, independent of whether a charging station is free or not. The robot brings the charging station in the form of a mobile energy storage device directly to the vehicle.
For operators of different parking facilities this is a quick and easy solution to electrify every parking space. “This approach has an enormous economic potential,” said Moller. “The constructional work as well as the costs for the assembly of the charging infrastructure can be reduced considerably through the use of the robots.”
The compact design of the charging robot is perfectly suited for use in restricted parking areas without charging infrastructures, such as underground carparks. Even the well-known problem of a charging station being blocked by another vehicle will no longer exist with this concept.
Owners can also install the ID. Charger, a unit developed by Volkswagen, in their homes.
36,000 places to recharge by 2025
The project is among Volkswagen’s initiatives to establish a charging infrastructure at many levels. Together with its dealers, the company aims to install a total of 36,000 charging points throughout Europe by 2025. A large proportion of these will be in public areas.
Volkswagen is also launching its own wallbox for home charging called the ID. Charger. And as a co-founder of the IONITY joint venture, Volkswagen participates in installing 400 fast-charging parks on major European highways. Medium-term, charging an EV is to become as easy as charging a smartphone.
The dynamic development programme for the fastest and most technically advanced McLaren ever ended with McLaren chief test driver, Kenny Brack, taking the new Speedtail up to its maximum speed of 403 km/h at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, USA.
The final high-speed tests were done on the runway that the space shuttles landed on.
The final high-speed tests in the ground-breaking hypercar’s extensive engineering validation process saw Speedtail prototype designated ‘XP2’ reach its maximum speed more than 30 times on the space shuttle landing runway. The exercise concluded a programme of high-speed running carried out at multiple test facilities worldwide, including Idiada in Spain and Papenburg in Germany.
“It’s fitting that the Speedtail’s high-speed test programme concluded with multiple maximum-speed runs at a location strongly associated with pushing the boundaries of extreme performance and engineering excellence,” said McLaren Automotive CEO, Mike Flewitt. “The Speedtail is a truly extraordinary car that epitomises McLaren’s pioneering spirit and perfectly illustrates our determination to continue to set new benchmarks for supercar and hypercar performance.”
Blending sleek and seamless beauty with pioneering technologies and truly remarkable performance, the Speedtail sits at the pinnacle of the McLaren Ultimate Series. At almost 5.2 metres long, the carbonfibre-bodied 3-seat Hyper GT is the most aerodynamically drag-efficient McLaren ever and a showcase for the brand’s expertise in lightweight engineering.
1,070 ps, 1,150 Nm, 0 – 300 km/h in less than 13 seconds
The Speedtail’s petrol-electric hybrid powertrain delivers the greatest power and torque of any McLaren road car, with a combined 1,070 ps and 1,150 Nm. The straight-line acceleration and maximum speed of the car set new benchmarks for McLaren, with 0 – 300 km/h achieved in less than 13 seconds and a maximum speed reached of 403 km/h.
The McLaren-developed battery pack has a power density of 5.2 kW/kg, said to be the best power-to-weight ratio of any automotive high voltage battery system. The batteries constantly self-charge when the Speedtail is driven – there is no ‘plug-in’ element – however, a wireless charging pad that trickle-charges and maintains the battery’s status when the vehicle is not in use is also included as standard.
The first of 106 Speedtails that will be hand-assembled to customer order has now commenced at the McLaren Production Centre in the UK, with deliveries scheduled from February 2020. Each customer will pay more than US$2.25 million (equivalent to RM9.32 million today) which is the base price for the car before personalisation.
Ford Motor Company has revealed the new Transit Smart Energy Concept – a one-of-a-kind 10-seater minibus which is helping the automaker explore solutions for maximising the energy efficiency and driving range of electrified vehicles. However, the distance that drivers can travel on a single charge of a battery-electric vehicle (BEV) continues to be greatly impacted by the use of cabin heating features.
Research has showed that using the climate control system in a BEV can reduce the driving range by up to 50% in cold weather. Perhaps the same also applies in hot weather though there would be different issues creating the same drawback.
Challenges to energy usage
Compared to goods transport vehicles, multi-occupant vehicles such as minibuses require significantly more energy to create a comfortable temperature for occupants. The energy is provided by the high-voltage battery, presenting a significant challenge to the vehicle’s driving range. In vehicles with combustion engines, an engine-drive compressor is used as a separate pump for coolant.
Demonstrated recently, the fully-functioning, all-electric Transit Smart Energy Concept delivers 150 kms driving range from a 4-hour charge, supported by energy-saving and energy-generating innovations from solar panels to powertrain heat recovery systems.
“With frequent door openings, a large space to keep at comfortable temperatures, and a big payload to carry, a minibus presents the toughest challenge for maximising battery-electric vehicle range, and that’s exactly why we chose it for our new Transit Smart Energy Concept,” said Kilian Vas, Project Leader, Vehicle Architecture, Ford of Europe. “By developing this concept we’ve found a number of clever ways to save energy which could help further improve the electrified vehicle experience for customers in the future.”
Innovations that enhance energy efficiency
The Transit Smart Energy Concept uses the same drivetrain technology as the StreetScooter WORK XL commercial vehicle, and a Transit chassis fitted with a battery-electric drivetrain for zero-emissions driving. Innovations which enhance energy efficiency and driving range being tested for the first time include:
♦ An innovative heat pump system which utilises waste heat from the drivetrain components, the outside air, and the air within the cabin to reduce heating system energy usage by up to 65%, resulting in a range extension of 20%.;
♦ A power sliding door which opens halfway to reduce heat loss and can be activated by the passenger using a smart device. The heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning blower is automatically deactivated when the door is open;
♦ Heated business-class passenger seats and surfaces which enable passengers to control their local temperature, reducing the energy required for the large cabin;
♦ 6 roof-mounted solar panels which charge a 12V battery for powering seat heating, cabin lighting, and on-board electrical systems, including wireless charging for passenger mobile devices;
♦ A polycarbonate divider between the passenger door and seating area, which further reduces heat loss as passengers enter and exit, and protects passengers from external elements;
♦ Ventilated double-glazed windows which reduce cold contact surfaces, and insulate against heat loss; and
♦ An insulated rear floor and roof which further reduce cabin heat loss.
Colours can also help to go further!
Mood lighting which adjusts according to cabin temperature – red for warmth and blue for cooling – subliminally influencing passengers’ perception of cabin temperature. Experts claim colour choices can influence our mood, our responses… even how many likes we get on social media! Now Ford is exploring how matching the right colour to different driving situations could extend electric vehicle range.
The ambient lighting makes passengers feel warmer (with red lights) or cooler (with blue lights). This helps take the strain from the climate control system so that energy saved can instead be used to cover more kilometres.
In a trial simulating a winter’s day of 0° C and a summer’s day of 30° C, passengers were subjected to rate their level of comfort based on feeling too hot or too cold. In both cases, the ambient lighting resulted in reducing the power usage of the climate system: by 3.3% for cooling and 2.5% for heating.
“Our exposure to colour can change our mood in all sorts of ways. Here it is simply a case of using red ambient lighting inside the car to make people feel warmer and blue ambient lighting to make people feel cooler. Reducing the burden on the aircon could make a significant difference to extending vehicle range,” explained Lioba Muller, Lighting Team Engineer, Vehicle Architecture at Ford of Europe.
Visit www.sdacford.com.my to know more about Ford models available in Malaysia.
Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Motors Corporation have debuted a new virtual reality (VR) design evaluation system at the brands’ global design headquarters. The new system, introduced to the Namyang Research and Development Centre in South Korea, demonstrates a heightened focus on enhancing vehicle development processes through the implementation of VR technology.
The technology uses several development applications, enabling teams of designers and engineers to carry out vehicle design quality assessments and development verification processes. It is part of the 15 billion won (about RM53 million) investment in the Namyang Research and Development Centre announced by Hyundai and Kia in March 2019.
Faster development times, reduced costs
Through the complete implementation of the virtual development processes throughout R&D and pre-production stages, Hyundai and Kia anticipate a 20% reduction in vehicle development times and a 15% reduction in annual development costs. In addition, these new virtual technologies are expected to increase profitability and trigger a cycle of continuously increasing R&D investment for Hyundai and Kia.
“The virtual development process is a necessary step for responding quickly and reacting with agility to the needs of customers and paradigm shifts within the automotive industry,” said Albert Biermann, Head of Research and Development Division for Hyundai Motor Group. “Through reinforced virtual processes, we will enhance quality and profitability, ultimately increasing investment in R&D to secure competitiveness in future mobility.”
20 simultaneous users
VR headsets allow the brands’ vehicle designers and engineers to virtually enter developmental simulations, with 36 motion tracking sensors detecting and tracking the locations and movement of all users, enabling each to participate accurately in real time. The new VR design evaluation system can currently support up to 20 simultaneous users, enabling greater cross-team collaboration than ever before.
As a result, the new cutting-edge facility allows the designers to more efficiently review a multitude of design concepts earlier in the developmental process and in ways that were previously physically impossible. The system simulates interior and exterior design elements, lighting, colours and materials, and even virtual environments.
Testing individual components
VR also enables development teams to simulate operations of individual vehicle components, such as doors, bootlids, bonnets, and windshield wipers. Furthermore, the system enables testing of vehicle ergonomics and aerodynamics more efficiently.
Hyundai HDC-6 NEPTUNE Concept
Hyundai first used this system during the design assessment stages of the HDC-6 NEPTUNE Concept Class 8 heavy-duty truck that was revealed in October. Kia also plans to expand the design assessment capabilities of the facility for developmental use on future models.
Additionally, plans to establish remote VR design assessment capabilities will enable real-time virtual collaboration between each brand’s design centres in Europe, America, China and India, along with an enhanced virtual development process through the implementation of AR (Augmented Reality), among other technology. There are also plans to introduce VR technologies in production and assembly lines to create more ergonomic, efficient and safe working environments.
